General History of Fort Wayne
Historically the site was known as Kekionga, the traditional capital of
the Miami Indian Nation. In the 1680's,
French traders established a trading post at the location because it was the
main portage between the Great Lakes via the Maumee River and the Mississippi
River via the nearby Little River branch of the Wabash River.
The French built the first fort on the site in 1697 as part of a group
of forts built between Quebec and St. Louis. Over the years, several forts were built on the same location depending
on who had control of the region.
In 1763, various Native American nations rebelled against British rule
and retook the fort as part of Pontiac’s Rebellion. The Miami regained control of Kekionga, a
rule that lasted more than 30 years.
In 1794, under the command of General “Mad” Anthony Wayne, the United
States army captured the Wabash-Erie portage from the Miami and built a new
fort near the three rivers. Fort Wayne
was named for the general. General Wayne was a personal friend of George
Washington.
The portage was replaced by a canal in the 1800s. Fort Wayne’s
significance as a waterway portage lost national prominence as the railroad
system developed in the United states. For nearly a century it was an important
railroad center between New York and Chicago.
Most of the population growth occurred in the 19th century
with immigration from Germany and Ireland. The large numbers of Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches reflect
this. German-language newspapers were
published into the 20th century.
Fort Wayne, IN Fast Facts
- ·
known as
“The All-American City” “The City of Churches” and “The City of Restaurants”
- ·
City
Population is 220,000
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Average
January temperature 18 degrees
- ·
Average
July temperature is 84 degrees
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Annual
precipitation is 36 inches
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Annual
snowfall is 31 inches
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Cost of
living is 7% below the national average
- ·
Closest
big city is Indianapolis (124 miles away)
Seminary's History in Fort Wayne
Concordia Theological Seminary was founded as a result of the efforts
of Dr. Johannes Konrad Wilhelm Loehe of Bavaria, Germany, Wilhelm Sihler, and
Dr. Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken of Fort Wayne, Indian.
Dr. Wyneken recognized the need to minister to the thousands of German
immigrants who had come to America in the mid-1800s and pleaded with his fellow
Lutherans in Germany to send pastors or to finance their training. Concordia Theological Seminary was
established in Fort Wayne in 1846, one year before the The Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod was organized, and has served the Synod ever since,
training men for the office of the Holy Ministry. The seminary was moved to St. Louis, Missouri
in 1861 and then to Springfield, Illinois, in 1875 before returning to Fort
Wayne in 1976.
During the absence of the seminary from Fort Wayne, The Lutheran
Church- Missouri Synod maintained Concordia Junior College in Fort Wayne from
1861-1957 and established Concordia Senior College on our campus in 1957. In 1975 the Synod elected to move the Senior
College program to Ann Arbor, Michigan, and to return the seminary to Fort
Wayne. Thus Fort Wayne has the
distinction of being the only city in the country that has never been without
one of the Synod’s ministerial schools. The 191 acres on which the seminary now resides were originally an
Indian reservation deeded to Pe-che-wa, a Miami Indian chief who later became a
Christian. In the early 1900s the land
was purchased by the Charles Kramer family, who homesteaded it. The Kramer homestead was then acquired by the
Synod, which built the campus between 1955 and 1957 to be the home of Concordia
Senior College.